Sacraments of Initiation: Baptism and Confirmation

            What were my husband and I thinking when we had our children, our babies, baptized into the Catholic faith? We were marking them for life in a convergence of the tension and conflict of glory, hurt/suffering, choice, growth, doubt, denial, community, isolation, transformation, and eternal life – a birth into the liturgy of the Church. We introduced “that subversive element of indeterminancy” into their lives (Johnson, 99). Who knew then? Johnson discusses how Christian liturgy “destabilizes;” discomfits as God is “met and worshiped only within the ‘body of the world and of humanity’ – more specifically, of suffering humanity. Christian liturgy always speaks the Word of the cross, and it is a ‘rupturing Word’” (99).

            In their formal infant Baptisms, we invited the Holy Spirit to fill our children and “empower… them to live the selfless love to which they were called” (Cooke and Maye, 71); we invited our children “to grow into their baptisms, allowing the Spirit of the risen Christ to enlighten and strengthen them to live the kind of life that Jesus lived” (77). It is ultimately up to them to “make this world their own” (77). Such a life will not always “make them most happy” (78),

            While our daughter was confirmed at 16 years of age, our son refused to complete the confirmation program. While it saddened and hurt me, in time, I have recognized that his heart and spirit have not matured to publically “choose…to live out the commitment of a Christian way of life” (Cooke and Maye, 85). I do not believe he is anything but a normal, still maturing, 19 year old who may choose a faith community in which to make his “own commitment to the Christian life as” an adult (79). As I noted in my opening, “who would”? As Esther De Waal so beautifully described the baptism initiation of early adult Christians, one who is ready to “strip away the many layers of self-deception” and “put on Christ” sought Baptism, which included today’s Confirmation ritual, the anointing with the oil of chrism, “the aroma of Christ” (47-53). Am I, my children’s mother, ready to publically declare my nakedness and wrap myself in the white robe of Christ today, every day? May the Holy Spirit continue to empower me with grace and gratitude to live the selfless love to which I am called. In a nod to Kathy's post, "may I illumine and enlighten those around me" in my little ways during my days and evenings; in my comings and goings.